March of Time

“The first thing necessary for a constructive dealing with time is to learn to live in the reality of the present moment. For psychologically speaking, this present moment is all we have”. – Rollo May

The March of Time is an American radio news series broadcast from 1931 to 1945, and a companion newsreel series shown in movie theaters from 1935 to 1951. Created by broadcasting pioneer Fred Smith and Time magazine executive Roy E. Larsen, the program combined actual news events with reenactments.

“From the beginning it was known that The March of Time would face the stiffest production challenges that radio had yet known”, wrote John Dunning:

When a big story broke at the last minute, a polished ready-to-air show was reorganized: the entire menu was shifted as events demanded. Newspapers are accustomed to this … but in radio, a new breed of actor had come to the fore, players who could deliver superb performances from scripts they had never seen before going live on the air. Sight reading, they called it: reading always two lines ahead and acting the lines they had already read. Actors, sound artists, and musicians worked feverishly to accommodate the bulletins from Time’s reporters in the field

“O let not Time deceive you, You cannot conquer Time.”– W. H. Auden “As I Walked Out One Evening”

“Time’s fatal wings do ever forward fly; To every day we live, a day we die” – Thomas Campion, Come, Cheerful Day.

Times Square 1909

Times Square 1930

“Pleasure and action make the hours seem short”. – William Shakespeare, Othello

“Time was made for slaves”– John B. Buckstone, Billy Taylor.

“He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time”– Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray

Time waits for nobody
Time waits for nobody
We all must plan our hopes together
Or we’ll have no more future at all
Time waits for nobody